family sailing on a beneteau first 38

It’s been a while. We’re entrenched. Maybe it’s time for a little update?

The Kids:

First day of school pics

Whelp, we didn’t totally ruin them, which is no small relief.

Halloween costumes. Vote Knope!

Both kids are enrolled at the middle school two blocks from the house we’re renting, and as far as I’m concerned, everything has gone better than expected. (If you ask the kids about this, they’ll tell you a long and fraught story about all the terrible things they’re being forced to endure, like gym and homework; but it’s pretty much just the standard horrors of middle school, not anything specific that we’re brought down on their heads.) This school is different than the one they would have gone to at our old house, so they’ve been plunged not only into a new school structure (middle school versus elementary), but also a completely different social circle; all of their friends from before are at a different school. And yet, they persevere! T has found a small group of close buddies to hang with, while in typical fashion, F has made friends with essentially everyone in her grade. Also, there’s a boyfriend. Honestly, as far as the 14-year-old is concerned, she’s probably really happy I’m no longer updating you all on her life.

Academically, things have gone even more smoothly. It’s hilarious to contrast our expectations for boatschool with what actually happened; we didn’t even work through a quarter of the stuff I’d expected to get done. And yet, somehow, the kids have been thriving. There’s was a lot of anxiety initially about making sure they were keeping track of all the work, but they’ve managed the content of their classes with élan. A’s all around. Whew!

Block party kickball game

Michu:

Back at work, and really happy to be there. It took a while for all the paperwork to clear, so he could actually start working, but now he’s 100% back. Michu really loves his job; it’s one of the big reasons we decided not to squeeze out another year of cruising. And much like the kids with school, he was relieved to discover he hasn’t lost all of his skills.

Shopping for house stuff, not boat stuff.

Me:

Oh, I’m just sitting on the couch, wasting my time. Well, not really. Despite some initial sleuthing into the job market, we decided it made a lot of sense for me to still be at home for another year or so. Managing our lives is still a pretty big challenge over here, with all of the changes we’ve been going through. Which brings us to…

Life as planned:

We are still amazed that we did all of the things we’d initially planned on doing (except for our leg to Colombia…darn wind just wouldn’t lay down). As of this week, that includes buying a new house! So now, our lives are spread between three properties: our original duplex, which is rented out; the house that we’re renting, with all of it’s weirdness; and the new house, a small 1914 farmhouse that needs at least a little work before we move in. Now that life is settling into a rhythm, Michu and I are really looking forward to having a new project; hopefully, we can use some of our old boat skills to manage the work on the new place, and maybe stick some solar on the roof.

There was a little unexpected flooding in our neighborhood; that’s Michu, standing on a step that should be well clear of the river. The water, it won’t leave us alone!!

Life is weird:

Three big things have emerged that continue to freak us our here on land: the amount of money in the US; the amount of scheduling people are expected to complete in a day; and the lack of casual connection on a daily basis.

The money is the easiest thing to acclimate to, I think, and we’re starting to not see it as much. We still shake our heads at the phone bill–currently ten times what we’d been paying as we traveled–and can’t see a $15 cocktail as anything more than a very rare indulgence, not a weekly habit. The amount people spend on cars and clothes, as though it’s a requirement and not an option, is still strange. But as we think about the changes we’d like to make to our new house, we’re starting to fall into patterns of consumption that have been foreign to us for the past eight years, between saving for the trip and actual boat life. It’s not terrible, but it’s certainly an adjustment; we’re just trying to keep things in perspective. Meanwhile, infrastructure still dazzles us, the kids have their own school-issued Chromebooks, and we just dropped a week’s worth of Mexican groceries on our first Christmas tree in a long time.

Managed to fit cookie decorating into the schedule

Scheduling is a harder pill to swallow. Michu’s work schedule fluctuates every week, while the kids are gone at school for such long stretches every day. Both kids have private music lessons each week; F is also on a swim team, with practice three times a week plus the occasional weekend swim meet. There’s after-school clubs, and babysitting and cat-sitting gigs. Birthday parties. Playdates. ACTUAL dates. It’s a lot to keep track of, and much of it involves driving around, which I do not love. Layering in the homework and instrument practice, and the kids are completely wiped out. There’s just so much to do! Early on in our return, we had a family meeting to hash our some chores; the kids wanted to contribute more to the family, and I didn’t want to raise a couple of slackers who didn’t know how to cook, clean a bathroom or do their own laundry. All of those things have fallen by the wayside; being a kid in America is essentially a full-time job.

Which brings us to Major Weirdness Number Three: the lack of just hanging out and connecting. We aren’t the only ones rockin’ a complex schedule; if plans aren’t on the calendar three weeks in advance, they’re probably not going to happen. And that’s a shame. When we first came back, we had a lot more time to walk around the neighborhood and drop by friends’ houses, just to see if they were home. Since school started, no one has that kind of time. Plus–man, it’s cold!! There’s ice! I don’t remember how to walk on this stuff! But trying to make concrete plans well in advance just adds to the to-do list. For my part, that’s the thing I miss the most from the past year; the causal hangout, the spur-of-the-moment potluck, the hike where you just pull together half the anchorage on your way to the trailhead. So many things are more difficult on a boat, but making connections was much, much easier.

Do we miss the boat? Yes and no. We’re certainly enjoying some of the pleasures of being on land, particularly laundry, libraries, and a modern kitchen. It’s been interesting to house-shop, and have people tell us, “After the boat, any house you buy will feel huge and amazing! Any kitchen will be a palace after being on the boat!” That’s…not actually how that works. The demands of land-life mean that the kids need more than just a closet to live in; cooking dinner every day on a hot plate is not ok when you’re faced daily with neighbors whipping up pasta dinners on a $2,000 stove. People acclimate really quickly to their surroundings, and we’ve acclimated to full-sized beds and desk space with a vengeance. And while comparison may be the thief of happiness, it’s still hard to avoid. If everyone around you is cooking on a two-burner propane gimballed stove, that seems normal; but if everyone has a dual-fuel range with a hood vent, it’s difficult not to struggle with inadequacy. On a boat, there are some pretty big perks for living in a tiny space, as well; on land, being more expansive is one of the compensations for waking up with the same view every morning.

Our current fancy kitchen. Check out the size of that fridge.

We’re trying to keep a hold on some of the lessons of boat life, particularly our perspective on the difference between “want” and “need.” We’ve been really successful in keeping the family bonds strong; we still regularly all pile onto one little couch to watch a movie, and our kids still tell us pretty much everything that’s going on with their lives. I’m sure that will fade a bit as they age, but hopefully those bonds have been reinforced for life.

The blog is our primary nostalgia-generator. When I look back to see what we were doing on a given day one year ago, or two, it makes me really happy to think about the great adventure we managed to pull off; but it also makes me sad that we’re living such a routine life at the moment. I’m not missing the boat, per se; I’m missing the excitement and variety that each day on the water brings. We’ve been so busy, stepping into our routines, buying the new house, cementing our old networks back into place, but I think it’s just about time to start planning some more extraordinary expeditions. It’ll have to be on a much smaller scale, but we need to inject some exploring back into our lives.

After two years of hard living, the camera is at the shop, but no one wants to slog through a total wall of text. So, here’s a pic of our friends Nomi in Baja.

A list.

Cheese curds. We now live in Wisconsin, where fresh squeaky pieces of cheese are coated in something delicious and deep-fried. To be clear: this is a basket of piping-hot cheese, to which you add more fat. It is tasty and amazing, but it’s also possible to cram a half a pound of hot cheese into your mouth in about five minutes. This should not be normal.

When you wash your hands, water keeps pouring out of the sink the whole time. Even when you’re soaping up, singing the happy birthday song in your head to make sure you’re killing off all the germs, the water just keeps coming. Sometimes, it’s even hot. That’s insane.

Traffic. People just sit around in their cars, not even moving much of the time. They can’t go into the back and make a sandwich. People spend hours of their day like this, and think it’s normal.

Streets and sidewalks are SO CLEAN. And wide. And smooth. How much money do we spend on this?

Kids have activities–music lessons, computer camp, sports. These activities cost a lot of money, and need to all wedge themselves seamlessly into a schedule. I’m remembering that I used to spend about 20 hours each year just planning out the kids’ summer–researching options, laying out the calendar, polling the Smalls for interest, coordinating with cohorts. This no longer seems like something a rational person should do.

American libraries are palaces.

We no longer care so much about Analyzing All of the Options. In the past, if we were making a major purchase, we’d do research for days–checking online reviews, asking friends about their experiences, looking up all the pricing options within a hundred miles. Now, after two years of having extremely limited options, we just get stuff. Did we get the best possible van, with the most options, for the least amount of money, that will last the longest and most improve our quality of life? I dunno. We just got a van. Similar actions are playing out with the car, new clothes, where we want to go to dinner. Turns out, none if this stuff is life or death.

Traveling down the street is a non-stop cataloging event. “That place is still here. Looks like this place folded. The Terrible Restaurant Location is still empty. Ooh, look–new bakery!”

We are still able and eager to strike up a conversation with any willing person we run across, and we fear that this skill will fade and we will lose the pleasure of these random interactions. In the last week, we’ve learned about a bank teller’s family car business, discussed the implications of online research with a librarian, met a fellow Minnesotan at a red light while we tried to direct him to a particular grocery store. Each of these little interactions connected us to the world, and were completely normal when we were traveling (especially in Spanish-speaking countries, when we were always looking for excuses to speak with locals), and are not common for most Americans, I think.

Dishwashers. How cool are they? Amazing!

One final incident that just happened, and illustrates how much my thinking has changed: today, F and I ran across a car accident minutes after it occurred. The driver had hit a big old ash tree, and the front end of her BMW was totaled. We pulled over, gently convinced her to stop trying to drive away, and tried to figure out how to help. I pulled her car out of the street, called her son on my cell phone, and offered to drive her where she needed to go. She’d hurt her wrist, her airbag had deployed, and she was obviously shaken up, but she didn’t want an ambulance or a ride to urgent care. AT NO POINT did it occur to me, hey: maybe I should call 911. Instead, my brain flipped into problem-solving mode like I was in the Panamanian jungle with another boat that had run aground.

Fortunately, another driver also stopped and reminded me that, hey, we have other people who can help this person. Once the police arrived, it became very obvious very quickly that, of course, my first call should have been to them. Turns out, this lady was on her way to pick up her Oxycontin prescription; she was undoubtedly driving impaired. She needed a professional medical evaluation by someone much more qualified than me. Giving her a ride home would have been extremely stupid on my part; and of course, it only crossed my mind as we were driving away that we were a hair away from being hit by her car instead of the tree. So, this is what it’s come to, folks–the hardwiring of my brain is clearly altered, and it’ll take more than a few months of pizza delivery to settle back in.

Shell beach. We didn’t spend much on souvenirs for ourselves, and we didn’t get gifts for our many friends, but we’ve been carrying around shells from Mexico and Panama to hand out to kids.

The last month has been a continuing whirlwind of visits–to family and friends, from Colorado to Minnesota.

The Colorado Contingent

We lucked out in Denver; Michu’s brother was visiting for his son’s lacrosse tournament, so we got to spend time with them and learn about the crazy-town sport of lacrosse. Did you know it’s totally legit to pummel your opponent with your lacrosse stick? We also had friends in town for an art fair, plus family, plus friends who are like family.

In between visits, we found time to do a little hiking and camping at the Crags, outside of Colorado Springs.

1,000-year-old bristlecone pine

Burn restrictions were such that we weren’t even allowed to light a camp stove “outside.” We rigged up a stove in the van, kept the doors and windows open, and hoped to avoid both a ticket and asphyxiation. This was the official point where we decided we were sick of living in a van.

Fortunately, Minnesota was the end of the line for van life. Although we’re still using it as a gear containment unit, we’ve been sleeping indoors for almost a month on beds and couches and aerobeds of family. We’ve been doing all the summer things: lake visits, grilling out, corn hole tournaments. Everything seems a little off, though; we’re anxious to be settled, and ready to have our own home base.

Peak Minnesota.

Action shot at the corn hole tournament

Serious mini-golf analysis

Michu checks out a jet ski for the first time…

…closely followed by similar land-based shenanigans.

There’s much that we can’t do yet, however. We won’t have an official address until mid-August, which may well disqualify us from voting in the upcoming primaries here in Madison; Michu’s job, while enthusiastically hiring him back (yea!), won’t be able to work through all the necessary paperwork for a bit; we can’t finalize the kids’ school stuff until mid-August. It actually looks like our move-in date, school registration, and final boat sale paperwork will all happen on the same day, so hopefully Michu can schedule a day-long orientation or something on top of it.

Meanwhile, we’re dipping out toes back into Madison. A few nuts-and-bolts things to check off–another vehicle, music lessons for the kids–but mostly hanging out with old friends. We’ve done a couple of excellent drop-by surprise visits that included actual double-takes–very rewarding. It’ll be a while before we’re up to speed, but that’s probably just as well; we move pretty slowly these days, and there’s only so much we can get done when the lure of beers on the porch beckons.

It’s really weird to not be keeping track of our expenses any more. We might have to pick it back up, once we’ve landed back in real life; it’s been interesting to see where we’ve spent the money each month. Right now, we’re flying blind–charging a hotel room here, a restaurant meal there–but for two whole years, we did our best to track every penny.

The family at the start of the trip. We were all trying so hard not to cry!

A few things we straight-up did not track: the kids’ allowance ($20/month, paid by their abuela and spent immediately on Kindle books); gifts (we didn’t want any snoops figuring out how much we spent on their birthday); souvenirs (we spent essentially nothing on this for our first year, but loosened up during the second). We also ended our tracking on May 31; costs associated with hauling and storing our boat, plus any additional expenses for the subsequent sale, aren’t listed. We won’t even have a tally on those costs until August 15, when our sale is finalized, so we left it out altogether.

One caveat, before we start: by October of 2017, we’d sat down as a family and confirmed that we wanted to limit our trip to two years. We had the money to squeak out a third year, especially if we pinched our pennies in Mexico, but we all agreed that two years was the right amount of time for us. That loosened up the purse strings when it came to things like addressing the oil leak in the engine, inland travel, and restaurant indulgences. Our costs for the second year of cruising could have easily been lower, but we were more relaxed about expenses.

Let’s break it down:

Free dock space on the Erie Canal

Marinas: $9,969.79; highest month, Dec. 2017, $1273; cheapest, $0, four months. We stayed in marinas waaaaaay more often than we’d expected. Early on, it was because we were not as awesome at anchoring out, and wanted hot showers or wifi; later, we were parked for engine work, inland travel, or because it was more convenient for visiting with family. We never expected to spend this much on marinas when we were planning our budget. The peak expenditure was when we settled up with Marina Chiapas for an almost two-month stay, plus a little dock space at the Acapulco Yacht Club.

Cost of all the pastry? Best not to ask.

Grocery: $15,271.56; highest month, Nov 2016, $2015.56; cheapest, $75.17, Feb 2017. This total doesn’t included stuff like beer and paper towels, shampoo and zip-locs–it’s just food. It does include market produce and buying stuff off boats from the Guna. Man, we lived off that pre-Bahamas provisioning forever; I think I still have baking powder in the van from Florida…

Not a sufficient supplement to the grocery budget

Restaurant: $6,295.17; highest month, Jan 2018, $448.54; cheapest, $49.42, July 2017. I’ve heard that it’s cheaper to eat out in Mexico than to buy groceries; that was not our experience. It is, however, worth eating out as much as possible, because the food is amazing. Our biggest month for restaurants was when we had three weeks of family visiting us, in a pretty touristy area. Worth it.

Laundry: $858.55; highest month, March 2017, $102.50; cheapest, $0, one month. That seems like a lot of money to have spent, considering how often I did laundry in a bucket. Jamaica was crazy-expensive, and I was making up for months of bucket-washing, which made me feel like everything needed a real wash. Once we hit Mexico, we generally dropped our laundry off, and it came back all folded and weird-smelling and impeccably clean. Consider these numbers if you’re on the fence about installing a washing machine on your boat.

One way to cut down on the laundry bills: washing the clothes in the dinghy after a hard rain in Guna Yala

Supplies: $5,634.83; highest month, Nov 2016, $1264.70; cheapest, $0, Feb 2018. This was such a weird. catch-all category for us. We tried to make it about purchases that were not boat parts or grocery, so it included a violin, a new laptop, drugs that should have gone into a “medical” category, homeschool supplies that should have probably been “education”…very slush-fund-y. Sorry about that. The top month was during our mega we’re-leaving-the-US provision, and included a backup iPad that proved to be very important.

Free music with the new violin

Pump Out: $139; highest month, July 2016, $55; cheapest, $0, 18 months. Remember when we had to pay for this? Mwah, hahahaha. We found that the East Coast often had services that were subsidized by the state or the municipality, while the Great Lakes charged a ton. Free pump-outs all along the Erie Canal, though. It was such a relief not to have to worry about this once we left the US.

Boat Parts: $7,755.47; highest month, Sept 2016, $1599.90; cheapest, $0, 3 months. That total included all the parts for our engine rebuild, plus exciting components like oil filters. The top month includes a new outboard. I’d like to say this category could have been much cheaper if we’d had another year to prep the boat, but it could also have been more expensive if we hadn’t done so much boat work before we left. It is what it is.

View from the top of the Empire State Building: Free, if you take the stairs. We chose elevator.

Boat work: $5287.64; highest month, Feb 2018, $1410; cheapest, $0, 17 months. We didn’t often pay to have work done on the boat, but when we did, it cost us. The decision to have our bottom painted by professionals was entirely based on our decision not to squeeze in an additional year of cruising–that was our top month for expenses in this category. That’s right: it cost us more to have the bottom painted in La Cruz than to have the engine completely rebuilt in Chiapas.

Booze: $833.65; highest month, Nov 2016, $125.76; cheapest, $0, 2 months. I’ve got to believe this number is waaaaaay cheaper than your average cruising boat, among those who drink alcohol. Most of our booze expenses were for local beer, consumed on the boat. We also weren’t around other cruisers for much of Central America, which cut down on this expense. Finally–remember when I got really sick in Costa Rica? I stopped drinking for about two months, and am still only up to one beer or a glass of wine. Cheap date.

Water: $197.98; highest month, March 2018, $43.49; cheapest, $0, 12 months. We spent money on water in Mexico, Panama, and the Bahamas. We went out of our way to find water only twice that I remember. Would it have been more convenient to fill our tanks with a watermaker? Absolutely. Would it have been worth the expense? Nope. Of course, I’m not the one who donned a full wetsuit for the two-mile jerry jug runs to fill our tanks in Georgetown…

Communications: $3,515.33; highest month, March 2018, $401.80; cheapest, $0, two months. About $2,250 of this was for our Iridium GO! sat phone service; while it is theoretically possible to surf the web with our unlimited sat phone data plan, we really just used it for texting and weather. About $500 was for website maintenance and access to Predict Wind. That means we paid about $765 for two years of all our international and local phone service plus internet access. You should have it so good.

Transportation: $3397.80; highest month, Jan 2017, $880.10; cheapest, $0, 4 months. That includes car rentals, long-distance buses, water taxis, pedicabs–everything. We never hopped on a plane. We also gradually relaxed our stance on taking a cab vs. schlepping home 1000 pounds of groceries. Side note: cab drivers are excellent resources, both for improving your Spanish and learning about the local narco traffic.

Representing a different kind of free…

Diesel: $2803.90; highest month, Dec 2017, $334.54; cheapest, $0, three months. Our diesel costs went up significantly once we hit Mexico; the cost per liter is higher, and there’s less wind. We’d read enough honest tales from other cruisers that we weren’t surprised how much we used our iron genny.

Dinghy gas: $141.25; highest month, June 2016, $30; cheapest, $0, 16 months. Kind of funny to list right next to our diesel expenses. Our new outboard was insanely efficient. It was also tricky to get our dinghy up on a plane with more than two people in the boat, so it’s possible we did less bombing around than other people.

Stove fuel: $690.02; highest month, Nov 2016, 131.99; cheapest, $0, six months. Oh, stove fuel. You were frequently such a pain in the butt. I have a hard time imagining what, in land life, will feel as satisfyingly wealthy as the feeling of having five gallons of stove fuel on board. Maybe home ownership? Maybe.

Garbage: $48; highest month, March 2017, $36; cheapest, $0, 19 months. We mostly paid to drop off garbage in the island countries of the Bahamas and Jamaica; in Jamaica, it was an additional fee to the marina bill. It’s possible we also got sneakier about dumping it in random street garbage cans.

Hotels: $977.50; highest month, Feb 2017, $270; cheapest, $0, 18 months. This includes hotels, hostels, casa particulares; but not our stay at language school in Guatemala, which was included in the school fees.

Smithsonian: free!

Edutainment: $2775.94; highest month, Nov 2017, $788.13; cheapest, $0, 6 months. This is a combo “Education” and “Entertainment,” since we’re unable to decide where entrance fees to the Met land. So: movies, museums, tours, etc. The big expense was the week at language school in beautiful Xela.

Medical/dental: $375.23; highest month, August 2017, $192.30; cheapest, $0, 21 months. Medicines like antibiotics and ibuprofen somehow ended up in our “supplies” category, but let’s say that was only about $40. The bulk of this expense was getting our teeth cleaned in Costa Rica. Also, did I mention, Michu is an ER nurse? We were well kitted out. Furthermore–everywhere outside the US, medical and dental care is actually affordable.

Price per sunset: no one knows

Insurance: $254.90. What’s that, you say? That’s what you pay every week of your life, when you combine your auto, health, life, and homeowners’ insurance? Yeah, I hear you, and we’re headed back in that direction; but here’s how things were for us when we traveled. First off, we were paying for homeowners’ insurance, but that was all balled up in our rental expenses/income, which we didn’t include here. No car. No life insurance. We only carried boat insurance through the Bahamas (most of which we paid for long before we left, and so didn’t include on the total), and boat liability insurance when we reached Mexico. As far as health insurance goes, we purchased completely terrible insurance through the government Marketplace, and our tax credit covered our monthly premium. It was essentially useless to us, except for catastrophic events–ER visits, or a condition that would have required returning to Wisconsin for treatment. Anything else we paid out of pocket.

Canal fees: $1104. So, we transited the Panama Canal as cheaply as possible. We withdrew the cash from our Schwab account, so we didn’t suffer any fees getting our money; we took repeated free shuttles from Shelter Bay marina (well, I guess the marina wasn’t free, but still); we didn’t use an agent; we scored free line handlers (and made new friends in the process). Our cash deposit against complications or fines was returned in full within two weeks of transiting. That is a rock bottom number for getting across Panama, people. Also included: the sum total we paid for a 10-day pass through the many locks and bridges of the Erie Canal–$20! At least, I think that’s what we paid. I went to verify the price on their website, since it’s not clearly labeled in my notes, only to learn that all fees are waived on the Erie Canal this year in honor of their 100th anniversary.

Federal locks in the US are free! Except for the taxes…

Bank fees: $256.02. You guys. I am the worst with bank fees. They were way more than this piddling amount, but they’re buried in bank statements and credit card bills, and I’m just not going to dig them out and add them all up. We were the most successful at avoiding fees when we used our Charles Schwab account to withdraw cash from an ATM, but we weren’t always that organized, and sometimes the only credit card that worked at the Supermercado Rey was one that charged a fat fee. Just…take this number and maybe triple it.

Ok, ready for some big numbers?

Year one: $38,508.95

Year two: $34,195.49

Grandest Grand Total: $72,704.44

The numbers aren’t quite going to reconcile; there are a few weird items not included in the itemized list (why did I only record paying for propane for the grill once?). Of course, there will be things we missed; we’re not robots. Still, it’s pretty darn close.

The embarrassing truth? We thought we’d be able to keep it to around $2000/month. A mere $24,704.44 over budget.

So yes, we spent so much more than we’d planned. But one important thing to realize: we never got to the point that we were like, Man, I hate living on this boat!! Yeah, we spent more time in marinas that we expected, but maybe that’s what we needed to do to stay sane.

Oh my god. It just looks like so much money, when you lay it out like that. And what do we have to show for it? A few molas, a molcajete shaped like a pig, a cool screen saver of a breeching whale. An unaccountable education for our kids. Strong family bonds. The knowledge of how to do something both unusual and difficult. Two whole years of intense, vivid, irreplaceable memories of our family being together.

At one point in our trip, we were discussing the current political situation in the US with some Germans, and the woman cautioned her husband to watch his choice of words–they didn’t know exactly how we stood on things. The man replied something along the lines of, “Honey, these are traveling Americans!” He expected us to have a broad perspective, and not embrace the current xenophobia that seems to have taken hold of so much of the US.

Traveling Americans, hanging out with the locals

We’ve avoided talking politics in this little sailing blog, but of course, as we’ve returned to the States, we’ve been discussing it more and more in our real lives. And while we won’t get into a dissection of immigration policy here, we will say that one of the reasons we took this trip with our kids was for them to really understand the common bonds of humanity.

We’ve been excited to explore cultural differences, but at the same time, our kids know that their teachers in Guatemala are just regular people, like their parents–even if they live in a country with machine guns outside the Taco Bell. They know that kids in Guna Yala like sugary Zuko drinks, just like they do. They know for sure that not understanding a language, or speaking it poorly, does not mean you’re stupid. And I’d like to see you try to convince them that Mexicans are lazy–I’ve heard the rebuttal straight from my daughter’s mouth, and you’re going to lose. Demonizing an entire group of people based on their nationality or the color of their skin is never going to fly with my kids; that’s a permanent lesson that can’t be unlearned.

Not everyone in our family speaks English.

Calling groups of people animals, denying desperate people the right to apply for sanctuary, and separating families at the border is not ok with our family, and deserves to be said out loud, in this space.

At the same time, we’ve been surprised by some of the folks we’ve traveled with in the cruising community. When we made our plans, and thought about the people we’d meet, we didn’t account for the different politics of fellow sailors. We’ve traveled companionably with people at the far opposite end of both the religious and political spectrum from us. What we’ve found are people whom we genuinely like. We’ve also found a great deal of fear, a torrent of misinformation, and feelings of disenfranchisement. Traveling by sailboat can expose you to not just the different cultures of foreign countries, but the different cultures of your own. It’s helpful, as we reenter the current civic scrum, to remember the human nature of our friends on the other side of the fence.